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Sopheap Pich

Cambodian, born 1971

Cycle, 2011

Sopheap Pich was born in Battambang, Cambodia, during a period of civil war. The Khmer Rouge eventually gained control (1975–79) but were toppled by their former ally, Vietnam, at which point Pich’s family fled to neighboring Thailand. The family remained in refugee camps until 1983 when they immigrated to the United States. Pich’s mature works, such as Cycle, 2011, and Luminous Falls No. I, 2013, feature oblique references to his early experiences and to the common materials of daily life in South East Asia, such as rattan, bamboo, burlap culled from rice bags, beeswax, and earth pigments.

Although he trained as a painter, Pich turned his attention to sculpture upon his return to Cambodia in 2002. Since 2005 he has focused exclusively on sculpture and has become one of the most celebrated artists of South East Asian origin in the international arena. Luminous Falls No. I—a wall relief that is part sculpture, part painting—is a rigid grid of bamboo and rattan, a lattice that serves as structural support for a ground of recycled burlap softened by layers of beeswax, resin, and charcoal with touches of muted color. With its formal juxtaposition of resilience and fragility and its reference to the body and the cyclical nature of life, Cycle infuses the post-minimalist grid with an uncharacteristic warmth and humanity that is a hallmark of Pich’s work.

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Works on Tour

Please note that many of our most popular works, featured in this summer’s exhibition Sincerely Yours: Treasures of the Queen City, will be on tour through fall 2015. We hope you will come and find your new favorites while these works are out serving as ambassadors for Buffalo!

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Installation information is subject to change. If you are planning to visit the museum to see a specific work of art, please call us first to confirm that it will be on view. 716.882.8700 TEL716.270.8297 TTY